I finally got around to watching The Direction’s videocast posted last week. Ken spent most of the time in this 36 minute show talking about the Dillon Rule. He calls it a “red herring” and takes to task those who think the rule should be abolished.
I fully expected the standard answer for supporting the Dillon Rule (that it is good for businesses) to be a part of his argument but instead, he offered up some examples of legislation that could be introduced. The thing is that every single example that he gave, such as allowing localities the ability to tax, is, in fact, a loosening of the Dillon Rule!
A much easier answer? Do away with the Dillon Rule.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Vivian — again, I think there is some confusion about what the Dillon Rule is really about. Whether a state is a Dillon Rule state or a home rule state only affects how state laws affecting localities are enumerated. In both, you get laws that describe generally the strcture of local government (e.g. how cities are chartered, the relationships between cities, towns and counties, etc etc). In Dillon Rule states, powers granted to localities are usually expressed in terms of authorizations to do certain things (“Thou shalt” or “Thou may”). In home rule states, they are expressed in terms of what is off limits (“Thou shalt not”). If the Virginia General Assembly were to specify in the Code of Virginia that localities could do anything no prohibited in state law (i.e. a repeal of Dillon), you can certainly bet that there would follow a list of prohibitions. Moroever, under the Dillon Rule, just because the General Assembly may decide to grant many new powers to localities, the Dillon Rule, in and of itself would not be weakened because those localities would still have only those powers granted by state law. Under the Dillon Rule, any state can have very powerful local governments; it is only a question of what powers are granted to local governments. Conversely, under home rule, localities could be very weak if the state government enacts a hefty list of prohibitions. I will grant that based on what I have read of Judge Dillon, he had an extremely dim view of powerful local governments, but the question of Dillon Rule versus home rule is not one of how powerful local governments are. Rather, it is only one of how powers affecting localities are constructed.
Tyler – there is no confusion, at least not on my part. Did you bother to watch the video?
As I said on the other blog, you & I will have to agree to disagree. The Dillon Rule in VA needs to go.
Whether Virginia is a Dillon Rule state or a home rule states matters less than the actual powers that localities would have. In that context, we may actually have much less to agree to disagree about that what we may think. By the context of your postion (and please correct me if I am misunderstanding your position), I am assuming that when you support a repeal of the Dillon Rule, you meant that and no more. In other words, we repeal the Dillon Rule, and localities would pretty much be able to do anything not already prohibitied by state law (yes, even in Virginia, there are a few direct prohibitions in there, granted that they are ususally clarifications to broader authorizations as envisioned by Dillon Rule construction — a good example would be the construction of 15.2-2298). I do think, however, if Virginia ever went to a home rule system, it is very likely that there would also be written into the law, a robust menu of prohibitions on the power of local government such that the powers held by local government would be reflective of the collective will of the General Assembly. In that context, I am not sure how much the transition to a home rule system would change things as they relate to the power of local governments. I can see on some of the smaller issues where that could be the case. I have not read anything on states that have made that transition, but it would be interesting to see if there is a good case study out there that could shed some light on how this transition has played out in another state.
Vivian – What do you think would be accomplished if Dillon’s Rule were done away with? For Home Rule to apply the Commonwealth must not have a statute addressing the issue and there are already statutes covering most everything. The difference would be that right now they are enabling statutes and after Dillon went away they would become limiting statutes. Even without Dillon a basic, and commonsense, rule of statutory interpretation is that when statutes allow one thing they exclude others (otherwise why have the statute?).
For example, there are numerous statutes allowing taxes and fees. Because of Dillon there have to be or the localities could not raise any funds. However, if you do away with Dillon those statutes are still in place and the localities won’t be able to get around them. Want to set up a sales tax? Va Code Sec. 58.1-605(A): “No county, city or town shall impose any local general sales or use tax or any local general retail sales or use tax except as authorized by this section.” How about property tax? Va. Code sec. 15.2-2404 covers that. Fees for upkeep of sewers? 15.2-2119. etc.
The same thing would apply for zoning. Sections 15.2-2280 & 2283 both give powers to the localities now but would become limitations on the localities if Dillon went away. Although, to be honest with you they already seem to give the localities an amazing amount of zoning power and 2283 states clearly that “ordinances shall be designed to give reasonable consideration to each of the following purposes . . . (ii) to reduce or prevent congestion in the public streets.”
In fact, you could argue that Va. Code section 15.2-1102 has already overruled Dillon’s Rule: “A municipal corporation shall have . . . all other powers pertinent to the conduct of the affairs and functions of the municipal government, the exercise of which is not expressly prohibited by the Constitution and the general laws of the Commonwealth” (more to it than just this quote).
I believe the Dillion Rule is a good thing for our Commonwealth.
I believe that without it we’d have have far higher taxes and far greater abuses of eminent domain.
The Dillion Rule offers us citizens a powerful way to force local governments to stop their abuses of We, The People.
It also forces government decision making to take a larger view before passing laws that som local government want – that do not really make good sense – this being discovered once a higher government body outside of the local corruption and not under the influence of local special interests considers the requests placed before them by local governments.
Conversely, it also creates a situation whereby the most powerful and wealthy businesses lobbies can buy off folks at the state level and subject We, The People at the local level to abuses that are not truely in the best interest of our local situation.
I think we Virginians suffer less abuses from government because of the Dillion Rule.
Special interests buying off a state-wide set of decision-makers costs far more than buying off some local politicians.
Hello everyone happy new year, i was not in VA. when the GOP took over richmond, 1998 if i am wrong on date please correct me thank you. let us all think now what does the gop stand for less goverment in your life, sense being in charge in richmond have the gop done that, no they have not. changing dillion’s law and giving more power to local gaverment such as norfolk for example, would be the right thing to do but i forget they lose power funny how that works out. feel free to talk jackhstiles.com thank you all and god bless.
spelling corection government, my bad. jackhstiles@msn.com
And conversely, Reid, it allows local populations to get screwed by representatives that will never ever be accountable to them. See, e.g., what Richmond has been doing to NoVa for as long as I’ve lived here.
Ken – the statutes to which you refer would be invalid if the Dillon Rule was scrapped.
I urge you all to listen to the podcast that Jim & I did with Delegates Sal Iaquinto & Terrie Suit. Del. Suit makes the point that those legislators who hail from the rural areas have a hard time understanding the needs of urban areas, yet they continue to have influence over what laws are needed in the urban areas.
I have often mentioned the fact that the local governments use the DR to hide behind whenever there is something that they don’t want to do. This blog is littered with examples, from the real estate tax to the right to referendum.
The Dillon Rule is a paternalistic point of view that disenfranchises the citizenry. It needs to go.
Just for argument’s sake:
Vivian, since you see state restrictions on localities as paternalistic and want them scrapped, I was wondering if you think Federal restictions on state decisions are paternalistic and should be scrapped.
Give me an example of a federal restriction on a state decision. If you say NCLB, then I agree – the rule should be scrapped.
uh uh, not falling for that. Your opposition to the Dillon rule isn’t case-by-case.
No, it’s not. But to be fair, I know a bit more about the Dillon Rule than I do about federal restrictions on state decisions. I have been convinced, by the accumulation of evidence, that the Dillon Rule is bad. I have not been similarly convinced on the issue of states’ rights, if that is where you are going.
I wasn’t going anywhere. I just wondered how far you would take your opposition to “paternalistic” government, which was not very far.
Um, Brian – if you were not going to states’ rights – which is the only thing I commented on – how can you deduce that I was not willing to go very far?